Reviews

First of all, what I hate in WWII movies/series is that other all nations speak the same languages, because that is convenient and easier for filmmakers and every viewer has to pretend that it is OK, but for me it is not. It is very ridiculous when Germans and Americans speak the same language- Polish, in American films Germans speak in English etc. I know that it is very hard to make a multilanguage movie with original language, but it is possible. A great example is "The Longest Day". There are three languages English, German and French. This movie proves that the language side of WWII movie is very important and it portrays the atmosphere of WWII very well. Let's pass to the series. The writer of this series is Boguslaw Woloszanski, a great documentalist and guru of WWII. The great sides of the series are costumes, militaries, a few nice battle scenes. The actors play very well, every actor plays their role well. Cezary Zak as the psychopatic German officer Harry Sauer is perfect. Also Borysz Szyc, Paweł Malaszynski, Jan Frycz and others. The Plot is about decoding messages and race to make the first atomic bomb between Germans and Americans. Also the war games between American spies and Germans, look well. Generally the series is well done it. It could be a little better but it cannot be perfect, because until recently Poland did not make own series about WWII.

The Series starts with an astonishing shot of New York Grand Central Station passing from 2009 to 1939. It also shows magnificent shots of the most famous WWII campaigns like the Attack on Pearl Harbor, D-Day, War at the Pacific. Really great shots. I think the main title maybe miss the point, but it is the second one is accurate. We do not really have high-definition quality of WWII footage, but the best I have ever seen. I think it is impossible to improve the quality of this kind of material to real HD, because of its source material, which of poorly quality itself. For me the creators of this series restored footage on WWII at a really high level. I think the color is its what this series makes successful. This type of documentary is a new look of WWII, because of color footage and lost and unseen films. Comparing to another good documentary "World at War" I prefer "WWII in HD" because of its original new style of showing WWII. The first one shows more details of the campaigns but the second one is the essence of the war. Series shows War simultaneously through interesting real-life stories and historical lessons with convincing, brutal footage supported by color. The stories are convincing and intensified by really interesting testimonies of the war veterans. From this series I found out lots of interesting things about Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was the longest serving American President. I did not know this figure almost at all. I think he passed to history by becoming the greatest American president of all time. I highly recommend this series. It is a memorable and haunting series about WWII, so I gave it maximum rating.

Recently I watched marvelous documentary "Mekong - Soul of the River". It shows other cultures simultaneously so different and so astonishing, that I can't imagine. After that I decided to watch next documentary about the greatest rivers of the Asia - the River Ganges. This documentary shows natural and spiritual world intertwined with each other. Ganges is a river, where fire and air, animals and trees, mountains and rivers are revealed as God. In this documentary Ganges is personifies as a Goddes, worship by natives. Proviedes sustenance and determine a religion for them. Documentary shows perfect, interesting and vividly all thing linked with Ganges: sources of river, religion, tributaries, nature, animals, mountains. One thing I can't understand, why those documentaries are so hard to find and not popular? I highly recommended this and others of those type of documentaries.